Many of the activists who tend to resist the idea of cultured meat are abolitionists who follow Gary Francione’s abolitionist approach and/or James LaVeck’s superb work. Here is a new perspective on the subject of cultured meat and its primary goal is to urge every Animal Rights activist – abolitionist, Animal Welfare person or any other animal advocate – to reconsider his or her views on cultured meat.

Some of the following concepts  may seem harsh or insulting to readers who do not understand the logic behind Animal Rights & veganism. If you are one of those readers: a) please keep in mind this “insulting” is nothing compared to the pain and suffering farm animals go through in factory farms; b) we encourage you to watch Earthlings.

Health & Environment activists who acknowledge the importance of cultured meat might be more interested in New Harvest’s website, where the health & environmental aspects of meat-eating are being addressed at length.

To capture this introduction, we would like to emphasize one significant point that became clear to us over the years: the less interest people have in resisting the idea of Animal Rights, the greater the chances of them accepting it. In other words, the less a person exploits nonhumans in his personal life, the more chances he or she will accept that using animals as property is immoral.

When the self-interest is not there, the chances of Animal Rights groups to succeed are much higher; because then only, the public (general speaking) manages to view moral issues in a fair and objective way. Examples include cosmetic animal testing, circuses, zoos, fur, puppymills, dog fighting, etc. Otherwise, moral or rational considerations are nowhere to be found and the repression mechanism works overtime (more on this issue  here >>).

One day, vegan education may be the most effective way to promote abolition of animal exploitation. That time is yet to come, thus first, we should try to eliminate the conflict of interests between the public and the animals.

Factors Animal Rights activists should consider when choosing a path:

For more, please take a look at whyculturedmeat.org.

The article is about PETA’s new campaign to offer a million dollar reward to whoever can develop a marketable in vitro chicken meat by 2012.

All the vegans are weighing in with their reactions to both PETA and to the NY Times article.

I wrote this:

Well, I sure could think of better uses for a million bucks, but I can also think of worse.

I think vat meat has got a real chance to succeed and if it does I think it could mean great things for animals. But that’s 30-50 years down the line, at least. I think this is what the CAAT was talking about in regards to food animals in video 3 here.

I personally won’t eat it. It’s just too gross.

Jason at SuperVegan says:

Like many vegans, I have conflicted feelings about in vitro meat (and about PETA, for that matter), but mostly I see this as a pure publicity stunt. 2012 is really soon for something like this. And $1 million isn’t all that much money for something like this. I don’t think PETA’s actually going to inspire anyone to develop better “fake” meat faster, and I think they know that. But the promise of $1 million is a quick way to get a lot of press attention and discussion.

I don’t know, is that really so bad? I think it’s good to remind the public that alternatives to animal slaughter are on the horizon. No reason to keep people in the dark. And free publicity is well, free. PETA’s always been great at that. So, it’s not like anyone’s wasting money here. And the goal is promotion of animal issue discussion, so it’s working.

But I worry that it may inspire apathy and laziness. If people think new technology will solve all our animal ethical problems within a few decades, they might be less willing to act on behalf of animals now.

Naturally, the NY Times writers don’t really understand or agree with animal liberation theories. The Times wrote this:

This has often seemed as if it were the logical conclusion of some radical animal-rights activists: better for animals not to exist at all if there is a chance that they would suffer.

We prefer a more measured approach.Ensure the least possible cruelty to animals, by all means, and raise them in ways that are both ethical and environmentally sound. But also treasure the cultural and historical bond between humans and domesticated animals.

As if GMOs are part of our culture and it would be oh-so-shameful if some were never bred into existence.

Mary at Animal Person wrote:

This editorial is a perfect example of what happens when you focus on cruelty: you open the door for what the Times “prefers,” which is “a more measured approach.” Once you couch your objection in the language of suffering, you have no choice but to accept any resolution that seeks to reduce suffering, otherwise you look like you’re against reducing suffering.

To the Times’ claim, that slaughter is a precious piece of culture, Erik at Vegan.com wrote this in response:

You know: the cultural and historical bond that involves one party cutting the other party’s throat. Yeah, let’s treasure that.

I like Erik’s response. What’s your response?